The Maze of My Mind
by Major Noku
Summary: The mind works in mysterious ways. Twists and turns tangle your thoughts, and logic becomes nothing more than a broken home, a worthless shelter in the turmoil of insanity. "Time is running out, and you won't want to miss the grand finale..." NOT ROMANCE!
1. Prologue

**A/N: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, or anything related to it! If you recognize it, it's not mine!**

**Warning: Profanity, violence, character death, torture, various other non-sexual twisted things, etc.  
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-TMoMM-

The mind works in mysterious ways. Twists and turns tangle your thoughts, and logic becomes nothing more than a broken home, a worthless shelter in the turmoil of insanity. When the roof caves in and that last wall collapses, there's nothing between you and the raging winds. In a world like this, many are drawn down the wrong path, following hopeless dreams and empty promises. Those who cling to the battered ruins of once perfect lives find it near impossible to navigate the coiled pathways, and eventually lose themselves to the Maze.

-TMoMM-

**A/N: Well, there ya go! This is a pretty weird prologue, I'll give ya that, but the next chapter's a good length. And it makes sense. In my opinion.**

**...And now I'm rambling.**


	2. Chapter 1: That Damned Voice

**A/N: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist! If you recognize it, it's not mine!**

-TMoMM-

"Shit shit shit shit shit..." A boy sprinted down the hall, eyes wide, trying desperately to make it out of the building. As he neared a split in the path his step faltered for a moment. "Left? Right? Damn it, where the hell am I supposed to go!"

"You should make your decision quickly, you know. You're running out of time," said a strange voice. It was neither male nor female, young nor old. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Shut up!" the boy yelled, picking a direction (which happened to be left), and sprinting down yet another hallway. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he pushed his legs to move faster, trying to make up for lost time.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock, how 'bout we speed up the clock!" the voice called out in an irritatingly happy tone.

The boy only responded by trying to run faster, but at this rate it wouldn't make much of a difference. As he turned another corner his foot slipped on the tile, causing him to fall and skid into the opposite wall, knocking the breath out of him. Tears sprang to his eyes. Not from the pain, but from the fact that he wouldn't make it in time. He stared, slightly dazed, back up the hallway he had come from. At the blood smeared all the way down the previously white hallway. His blood.

"You know, you still have some time left. Eighteen seconds, to be exact. And look: you're in the last hallway! If you hurry, you can make it out. If not, well... You won't be the only one losing a lot of blood today..." The strange voice started to chuckle to itself towards the end, finding this situation quite funny.

"Last hallway...?" The boy looked up and saw... "The door!" he gasped, quickly ridding himself of any doubt. He would make it. He could do it. '_I can save him..._' He stood up shakily, wondering just how much time he had lost since the voice told him there was still a chance.

As if it had read his thoughts, it began to count the seconds out loud. "Ten."

The boy pushed himself off the wall, ignoring the pain screaming at him to stop.

"Nine."

Ignoring the bruises, gashes, and burns.

"Eight."

Ignoring the fact that he was tired, and starving, and starting to feel a bit numb from fatigue.

"Seven."

There was only one thing on his mind...

"Six."

Get out.

"Five."

_Get out._

"Four."

_GET OUT._

"Three."

_GET OUT!_

"Two."

"_**GET OUT!**_" He was almost at the door now, pushing blindly forward with all his strength. His fingers twisted around the knob, yanking it roughly towards him.

"One."

Just as the final number was spoken, the young boy flung himself out the door, hitting the ground outside with a thud.

"Ha!" the voice laughed. It was a loud, barking laugh, quite different from the quiet chuckle heard earlier. "Seems like you've made it out in time. Congratulations."

The boy looked up. He was in a field, miles away from civilization, with a single building sitting in the middle. Lying on his back, the boy's heart-rate began to slow to a more normal speed. "You... You mean I... won? I did it?"

"Yes, yes, you did it..." it didn't seem as upset as it should have, but the boy didn't care. He had made it. Everything would be okay. It would all work out. He could go back to his normal life...

"So... That means he'll live..." The boy grinned, relieved, and lifted an arm to move a strand of hair from his face. "He's alive..."

"Heh... Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that."

The boy's eyes shot open in shock and he gasped. "Wh... What...?" He sat up, looking around. Surveying the area. And then he saw it. He saw the body.

"B... But you said..." He slowly dragged himself over, forced himself to look.

He should never have done that.

There was blood everywhere. A deep gash ran diagonally across his upper torso, split wide open. Many of his ribs were broken, and they were all poking through the jagged tear in his skin. There was a bloodied mess of organs spilling out on both sides, the intestines faring the worst. The blade that had cut through the body had also cut across the wound up organ, slicing across several segments and making it look as though it had been through a blender. Various other cuts and bruises covered the corpse, and there were even large strips of skin missing all over, but that's not what had the boy upset. No, the image that would be forever burned into his memory was the face. To anyone else it would be mutilated beyond recognition, but the boy would know this face anywhere.

It was the face of his little brother.

And suddenly every other thought flew right out of his head. The boy's knees buckled and he collapsed once more onto the ground. He didn't care about his own wounds, or the fact that he was kneeling in a pool of blood. He cared only for his brother - his _baby brother_ - lying dead in front of him.

"You... you said if I- You couldn't... No, no, I did it! I got through, NO!" The boy glared up at the sky. "I made it through, I know I did! You said... You said you wouldn't kill him if I made it **THROUGH**!" The boy hung his head forward, grief contorting his face. All traces of anger were now gone as a choked sob erupted from his throat. "No... Damn it, Al... I just got you back, Alphonse..."

The voice laughed darkly in response as an eye-shaped portal appeared on the ground, black tentacles slowly stretching upward from the edges. "Well, obviously I lied. You brought this upon yourself, Edward Elric."

_"NO!"_

-TMoMM-

**A/N: So...? How was it?**


	3. Chapter 2: Dream State

**A/N: So... I am having trouble with the first few chapters of this. I know what I'm going to do later on, but these few are making it hard to get there! XD Anyway, enjoy.**

-TMoMM-

"NO!" Edward's yell was quickly followed by a bang, and an intense pain spread across his forehead. He fell back, clutching his head. A thump could be heard as he fell down onto the cold, unforgiving... '_pillows?_' Opening his eyes, the short alchemist realized that he was lying on the couch (which, while it could be cold, was certainly not "unforgiving") in the apartment he shared with his younger sibling. Confused, he sat up, narrowly avoiding the edge of the inconveniently placed table. '_I must have panicked and sat up, then hit my head on the table..._'

"Brother, are you okay?" Alphonse's voice drifted from the kitchen, jolting Ed from his thoughts. "Did something happen?"

"It's fine, Al. Don't worry about it." '_Just that damned nightmare again,_' Ed thought to himself as he repositioned the table. He had been having a recurring nightmare of running through hallways, desperate to escape before time ran out. Each time he had failed, and somebody he knew had died gruesomely as a result. Winry had been ripped apart by a couple of chimeras; Izumi was burned to death, brain boiling and bones splintering; even Mustang had died in a car crash when somebody had transmuted a large pillar up out of the road directly in front of him. His hadn't been a quick death from the crash itself, it was from heavy internal bleeding caused by his stomach, liver, and a few other organs tearing away from blood vessels, ripping them open in the process. Each death had been torturous to the victim, right up until the end.

It had been going on for months, ever since Al had gotten his body back. This had been the first time he had actually made it out, as well as the first time it had been Alphonse as the victim.

Ed was shaken from his thoughts once more when he heard the voice of his younger brother directly in front of him. "Are you sure you're okay? You're all shaky and covered in sweat." Al's concerned voice made Ed look up. He could see the dark circles under the elder's tired eyes, but chose not to say anything.

"Just peachy..." came the muttered sarcastic reply. Ed ran a hand through his hair to find it, sure enough, drenched in sweat. "Look, I'm gonna go take a shower. Maybe afterwards we can visit Gracia and Elicia; I heard they just got a kitten, and it's pretty friendly," Ed smiled reassuringly up at Al. He wanted desperately for Al to stop asking questions. He had only just gotten his body back, and Ed didn't want to make the transition any more difficult by stressing him out.

Al perked up visibly, nodding his head so quickly that Ed was almost afraid it would pop off. He had spent so much time as a suit of armor that he was unused to the chemical surges that get released by your body in response to certain emotions, and tended to overreact to things. Once it took Ed about fifteen minutes and seven other people to calm him down after Mustang had told an amazingly bad joke about some particularly unruly butter and a coat hanger.

Ed stood, stretched, and began to make his way toward the bathroom. He had been stripped of his State Alchemist certification when he gave up his Gate in exchange for Al, but the two brothers still tended to want to hang around Central. They weren't entirely sure why, though, since it served no purpose and both wished they could see the Rockbells more often. They both had this nagging feeling that something big was going to happen. Though whether good or bad, they couldn't be sure.

-TMoMM-

Ed, of course, held true on his vow to take Al with him to the Hughes' house. He had to admit that it really was nice seeing them again. And talking with Gracia had helped him take his mind off of the dream.

Though with his luck, of course it couldn't last long.

While playing with the kitten, Al received a little "play scratch". It was still so young, it hadn't yet learned not to attack with its claws while playing. The scratch wasn't bad at all, and it barely even bled. But... it was enough to bring back the image of Al's mutilated face from the dream.

Cuts of varying sizes covered his skin. A long, deep gash sliced across the left side of his cranium, making it halfway through the skull. His once joy-filled eyes were wide with fear and pain; a single, final tear mixing with the blood that gushed from the hole where his nose once was. His lips were parted slightly, as if in an attempt to cry out for help, but his glazed eyes made it painfully, sickeningly, _obvious_ that he would never speak again.

Ed began to feel sick. He needed to clear his thoughts. "Hey, um... I'm just gonna go out for a bit," he said quietly.

"Oh, um, okay." As Ed turned towards the door, Gracia began to feel a strange sense of foreboding. Something bad was going to happen. Brushing it off as nerves, she waved goodbye to the ex-alchemist, hoping that it wasn't for the last time.

After the door closed, she felt a small hand in hers. She looked down to find Elicia staring up at her. "Mommy? I'm scared."

-TMoMM-

Ed stepped onto the sidewalk, gaze trained on his feet, hands in his pockets. '_Just a quick walk,_' he thought to himself. '_Maybe down to the grocer's; we do need more eggs._'

He made his way down the street, lost in thought. He tried to push away all thoughts of the dream, but they just kept coming back. What was wrong with him? Where did these dreams keep coming from? What did it all mean? He knew that dreams were generated in the subconscious, so there had to be some reason for them. He racked his brain to come up with a decent answer, but all he got was a few odd stares from passersby who seemed confused by his frustrated noises and angry stomping.

He gave up. He felt like he was about to vomit.

Slowing down even more, he sighed in defeat. This was getting him nowhere. For another ten minutes or so, he simply walked straight ahead, his earlier decision to head for the grocer's forgotten.

Eventually, he found himself pretty deep in the Red Light District. It wasn't pretty.

He was too distracted by his own internal conflict to notice someone step from an alleyway behind him. The figure grabbed ahold of the young prodigy's shoulder and spun him around violently, slamming his fist into Ed's shocked face as soon as it came into view. Ed, being too stunned to do anything else, simply stumbled backwards and collapsed onto the ground. The figure kicked him in the jaw, and he was out cold.

-TMoMM-

Ed slowly became aware of his surroundings. It was cold. It was wet. It smelled like _shit_.

"Guh..."

He opened his eyes, and immediately became aware that either a) he was blind, or b) the lights were off. He seriously hoped it was the latter; Mustang said being blind sucked.

So he tried sitting up, and immediately became aware that that was a _bad idea_. Pain shot through him, making him almost yell out. He had to bite his lip to prevent himself from making any noise loud enough to attract attention. It was almost as bad as automail attachment.

As he collapsed back to the disgustingly dirty floor, he wondered what the hell had happened to him. He vaguely remembered going for a walk to clear his thoughts when he had been assaulted by some creep. But what could they have wanted from him?

His head throbbed, making it hard to think straight. But his jaw didn't hurt at all. He thought that was strange, for some reason. He didn't really remember much of what had happened before he fell unconscious, but he had the feeling that his jaw should at least be broken, if not completely shattered.

This whole situation was so damn _weird_!

Suddenly, he was blinded by a bright light directly in front of him, as a figure stepped through the newly-opened doorway. He instinctively turned away and threw his arm over his eyes, though his head screamed in protest.

"Ah, finally awake. Let's get started, then, shall we?" Ed heard a cold voice that seemed to originate from the center of the light. He tried to squint up at it, but it was hard to find the head with his vision so distorted.

"Who are you?" he yelled. His bold voice betrayed none of the fear he felt.

"Feisty one, aren't you? No matter; we shall put all that anger to use soon enough." Just as Ed's eyes began to adjust, he saw the man stride forward. He used his foot to flip Ed onto his back, then pulled him into a sitting position by his hair. Ed gave a short yelp; his damaged scalp could not take this kind of abuse. The man continued. "You will not talk back to us. We are here to help you."

"To hell with that! You don't even know who I am!" Ed yelled back. He was getting _seriously_ pissed off.

But the man only laughed darkly in response. "On the contrary, Edward Elric; I know exactly who you are. We all do." He relaxed his death-grip on Edward's ponytail, releasing the teen and allowing him to slump back to the dirty floor. "I will be back soon with my team. Perhaps then we will make some progress."

And with that, the man shut and locked the door, leaving Ed to stare dumbly into the darkness once more, this time with his mouth hanging wide open.


End file.
